Consumer Law

Predatory lending made worse by Bush Administration

Posted on February 20, 2008
In case you missed it over Valentine’s Day, Elliot Spitzer, consumer rights hero, wrote a great J’accuse piece in the Washington Post . In the piece, Spitzer rightfully accuses the Bush Administration through the OCC of actually making the predatory lending problem worse by first trying to ignore the problem, then when the States [...

Barack Obama on the subprime mortgage crisis

Posted on February 20, 2008
Here is a short video from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in which he promises to create a ten million dollar fund to help keep people in their homes and a tax deduction for homeowners who do not itemize on their income tax returns. [via Consumer Rights Watch]

Quit Claim: Scams in prime time.

Posted on February 17, 2008
You know that a new topic has hit the big time when Law & Order gets hold of it.  In the lead-up to the settlement of the writers strike, NBC threw their hat into the ring concerning the current “ripped from the headlines” plot on Law & Order...

CenterPoint Energy drops its credit reporting plan

Posted on February 12, 2008
Last October, I posted about CenterPoint Energy’s plan to report delinquent accounts to the credit reporting bureaus. Last Friday, CenterPoint announced a change of plan, saying it will hold off on reporting indefinitely. Consumer groups and advocates for low-income families apparently made the difference: They said it would damage credit records — now used for everything [...

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Roundup

Posted on February 12, 2008
More news than I can keep up with lately. Here are a few choice tidbits: ‘Zombie debt’: When collectors haunt you (Newsday) Fed’s Rate Cuts Bring No Relief For Consumers’ Credit Card Bills (Washington Post) Killer Credit (In These Times) Suit Alleges Widespread Fraudulent Legal-Aid Scheme (WSJ Law Blog) Major lenders put freeze on foreclosures (CNN/Money)

Preying on the elderly, payday lenders? newest victims

Posted on February 12, 2008
How much worse can things get? According to a new article in the WSJ, those wonderful community financial services people, more commonly know as Payday lenders are increasingly targeting recipients of Social Security and other government benefits, including disability and veteran’s benefits...

We just completed our redesign

Posted on February 09, 2008
We just completed our redesign by Leanne Wildermuth of E.Webscapes Design Studio! Let us know what you think in the comments.

Payday loans the not so cheap alternative

Posted on February 08, 2008
Apparently, all those happy payday loan customers who quickly repaid their loans, avoided disaster and extra costs doesn’t included a lot of people in Utah. In a really great article full of all kinds of interesting facts by the Desert Morning News, their research found that payday lenders have sued nearly 27,000 Utahns for nonpayment since [...

Mortgage Securitizers fiddle as Rome burns

Posted on February 08, 2008
The NYTimes has a piece on the 5th Annual Conference of the American Securitization Forum held in Las Vegas. These are the guys who played a major role in bring us the current foreclosure mess. Well while the rest of the country and the world for that matter mucks its way out of the mess [...

Alternatives to Payday loans: Small Dollar Loans

Posted on February 07, 2008
In what is hopefully the start of something, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced the selection of 30 banks to participate in a two-year pilot project to help identify best practices in affordable small-dollar loan programs that can be replicated by financial institutions...

Caveat Emptor playlist: BoA execs singing bastardized version of U2?s ?One?

Posted on February 06, 2008
Warning: the following video may make you want to vomit. Choice quotes: “Pick a card that shows your heart and your pride.” “We’ll make lots of money forever, I can sing.” Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

New form: request for validation letter

Posted on February 06, 2008
Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a debtor has 30 days after the first written communication from a debt collector to request validation of the debt. This form letter is a convenient form for requesting validation of the debt (PDF link)...

Payday loans: countering the spin

Posted on February 05, 2008
Elizabeth Warren at Credit Slips (a great blog I just now learned of on credit and bankruptcy by six academics) has a great post touching on some of the payday loan research including the the Center for Responsible Lending (PDF link), the Center for Community Capital (PDF link) and the the bad numbers in the [...

How the candidates stand on the subprime meltdown

Posted on February 05, 2008
Bankrate.com highlights the major-party presidential candidates’ stances on the subprime meltdown. Romney, Huckabee, and McCain favor a light touch, perhaps freezing interest rates or offering some aid to borrowers. But they are vague as to what, if anything, they would do...

Payday loans only delay trouble

Posted on February 05, 2008
In all the back and forth on payday loans in the press and blogosphere, a study titled NC Consumers after Payday Lending by the Center for Community Capital at Univ. of North Carolina does seem to be getting as much play as it should. Though the Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA), the trade [...

Debt collectors and wrong numbers: how to handle a case of mistaken identity

Posted on February 05, 2008
Debt collection is something that everyone has to deal with. Case in point: a debt collector just left a message on my mom’s answering machine, where I have not lived for eleven years. My credit report is squeaky clean–I just checked–but apparently there is another Sam Glover out there who has worse luck...

Caveat Emptor playlist: the mortgage foreclosure mess explained

Posted on February 05, 2008
In Part 1 and Part 3, Sarah Ludwig and Herman De Jesus discuss the foreclosure crisis in New York City. De Jesus points out that subprime loans are the only loans available in many minority neighborhoods. Part 2 features Nerida Soto-Cuccia, an ordinary, well-educated, middle-class homeowner who landed in foreclosure as a result of a subprime [...

Arbitration clauses: no car without one.

Posted on February 04, 2008
Mother Jones has a great piece on trying to buy a car without an mandatory arbitration clause. It can’t be done from a dealer, which means no new cars. Try the same thing with cell phones. I asked at Sprint, they said no. (I couldn’t shop around as my wife’s employer will basically only support a [...

F.B.I. opens subprime inquiry

Posted on February 04, 2008
I guess better late than never. The NYTimes is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the troubled mortgage industry. The F.B.I. is supposedly looking into possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with loans made to borrowers [...

Follow up on the ?SHIT FACE? letter

Posted on February 02, 2008
The AP reports that the lucky recipient of the “Dear SHIT FACE” letter is planning to sue Nationwide Collections next week. Nationwide’s excuse–”shit happens”–is not likely to hold up in court. (As an aside, are the national media outlets allergic to citing their sources? This blog broke the story, but neither the AP/MSNBC nor ABC deigned [...

Stanley Steemer?s 10% discount is no discount at all

Posted on February 01, 2008
My mom sent me an e-mail this morning about Stanley Steemer, who she just hired to clean her carpets. As you can see, they advertise “up to 10% off your order total when you schedule online.” Hmm, “up to?” As it turns out, Stanley Steemer has a minimum charge of $99...

Attention homeowners: your lender can help you avoid foreclosure

Posted on January 31, 2008
[Consumer Law & Policy Blog crosspost] According to a Freddie Mac study, 57% of homeowners are unaware of the workout options that could help them avoid foreclosure. And this is an improvement, up from 61% in 2005. Will the lender actually work something out? It’s worth a try, and lenders do know that allowing a house [...

Spiros Zorbalas is a helluva slum lord

Posted on January 31, 2008

RIAA wants $1.5 million per song

Posted on January 31, 2008
Apparently, the RIAA thinks you should have to pay $1.5 million for that copy of MC Hammer’s “Too Legit to Quit” you downloaded for your last 80s party. Google’s copyright lawyer, William Patry, commented that the bill was the most “outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US...

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections

Posted on January 31, 2008
We are all consumers of democracy. Or, at least, we think we are. David Earnhardt’s “Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections” makes a convincing case that voter fraud has been rampant in the last four elections, making U.S. elections worse than elections in many third-world countries...

Comcast now allows customers to opt out of mandatory binding arbitration

Posted on January 30, 2008
According to Consumerist, Comcast is now making it easy for customers to opt out of mandatory binding arbitration. This is great news, and a consumer-friendly move from Comcast, which lately is best known for throttling its customers’ bandwidth...

New financial plan: walk away from your mortgage

Posted on January 30, 2008
I am torn. I don’t know whether I should post this link or hope it dwindles into obscurity (unlikely). The website says it all: You Walk Away promises to help homeowners walk away from their current mortgage with no debt, no strings, and says ballsy things like this: You will immediately know the exact amount of days [...

I hate candidate (and fundraiser) phone calls

Posted on January 28, 2008
‘Tis the season of phone calls from candidates’ phone banks. Or, if you are really lucky, for dumb recordings of candidates’ sound bites. My wife, formerly a fundraiser, tells me that these phone calls are essential to campaigning, whether for political office or for an organizational fund raiser...

Bush may ?fix? the Chinese toy problem by hiring Gail Charnley, who will probably just reassure us that the problem does not exist

Posted on January 28, 2008
Gail Charnley is a toxicologist and biochemist, and the head of HealthRisk Strategies, a consulting firm that specializes in risk assessment (apparently for producers of toxic substances). According to the Washington Post, she has opposed stricter emission standards for power plants...

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

Posted on January 26, 2008
How is it possible for a radio to cost as little as $4.99? For that matter, how is it possible for a “big ticket item” like a computer to cost as little as $200. It isn’t. Not really. Along the way, all sorts of other costs go into that cheap radio or computer...

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